#dessert tonight: Custard Cake

September 27, 2013November 15, 20131 Comment

Truly delicious and super easy too! I got this recipe from Pinterest – from another blogger I follow: white on rice couple… So I thought I’d try it out – and it didn’t disappoint! (I adjusted the recipe a tiny bit to work better for me…)

http://whiteonricecouple.com/recipes/magic-custard-cake/

113g butter

2 cups of milk

4 eggs, separated

150g icing sugar

1 tbs water

115g flour

1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 160C, lightly butter baking dish.

Melt butter & set aside. Warm milk and set aside.

Whip egg whites to stiff peaks (add a few drops of vinegar to help eggs stay stable) and set aside.

Beat egg yolks & sugar, mix in melted butter & water until evenly incorporated.

Mix in the flour. Add milk & vanilla – slowly – until well mixed.

Fold in egg whites using a whisk – ensure all big chunks are mixed in properly (it will look a bit curd-like.. All normal!)

Pour batter (very liquid batter) into oven dish and bake at 160C for 40-45minutes until the top is golden and set. Let it cool completely before removing from dish, dust with icing, cut and serve.

This will be delicious with some fresh strawberries or raspberries!

Enjoy! X

Warthog Pie

September 27, 2013Leave a comment

Leftovers… What leftovers?! I used most of the leftover meat from a warthog roast we made a few days ago. (I froze the meat)

I hate wasting food and and there is usually something creative and tasty you can do with leftovers – especially meat. Just be sure to freeze it if you’re not going to use it straight away.

Anyway, so here’s my recipe for a delicious, juicy warthog pie: (You could use regular pork meat too!)

Leftover warthog meat (in a sherry, ginger & quince glaze – see my post Warthog Roast), +-800g, cut into small pieces

1 carrot, diced

250g peas

500g streaky, fatty bacon (warthog meat is very lean and loves a bit of fattiness!)

1 onion, chopped

1 cup of dry white wine (I used Pinot Grigio)

1 1/2 cups of chicken stock

Sauté onion in olive oil and add carrots. Add diced bacon, warthog meat and peas – cook until bacon is cooked. Add wine and stock and let it simmer for a good 1/2 hour at least.

Let the mixture cool, then add 3 tbs of flour to thicken it up while baking. Put filling into a pie dish and cover with puff pastry. Brush with egg and bake at 180C for 40 minutes until golden brown.

Enjoy with a yummy salad – we had roast beet, goats cheese & walnuts on a bed of mixed lettuce and drizzled with olive oil.

Tapas-style platter & pannacotta for dinner

September 26, 2013November 15, 20134 Comments

What can I say – I have a teensy bit of an obsession with pannacotta…

The first time I made it, the gelatine didn’t dissolve properly and I used too much – leaving a weird blob of gelatine at the bottom. I made it again a few times and it either came out too runny, too ‘solid’ or too creamy. Well I suppose it can never be too creamy, but maybe the portions were too big and it was just too much ‘richness’..

So, I tried it again tonight, with half buttermilk and half cream and I set the gelatine in water first (might sound obvious, but all previous recipes I used called for the gelatine to be added straight to the warm cream mixture) and then added it to the cream mixture. This worked much better! (Basic pannacotta recipe from Donna Hay – love her! – with my addition of peach & apricot.)

So here it is – buttermilk pannacotta with peach & apricot:

1 cup of cream

1 cup of buttermilk

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp gelatine

2 tbs water

1/2 a cup of icing sugar

2 tsp chunky apricot jam

1/2 a peach, cut into thin slices

Mix gelatine with water, stir and set aside. Heat cream, buttermilk, vanilla & sugar until sugar has dissolved. Add gelatine and let it dissolve properly. Pass through a sieve and set aside.

Next, place peach slices into 2 cups or small ramekins and top with a teaspoon apricot jam in each. Pour pannacotta mixture onto the fruit, refrigerate for at least 7 hours until set.

To serve, simply invert onto a plate (insert a sharp knife and edge it all around the cup to loosen) and garnish with a sprig of fresh mint.

{Best pannacotta ever!! Seriously – SO yum – a real winner!}

With summer on our doorstep, I decided to serve up a platter with all sorts of delights that we can simply eat ‘finger-food-style.

My platter consisted of:

Grilled aubergine (Brush with olive oil and grill on a griddle pan)

Goats cheese

Danish feta cheese

Roasted, cooled beets (leftover from our Heritage Day feast)

Assorted lettuce leaves

Marinated tomatoes (2 diced tomatoes marinated in salt, freshly chopped garlic and olive oil)

Slices of cabanossi sausage (smoked & cured pork sausage)

Crispy grilled chicken livers (dusted in flour, paprika & cayenne pepper, fried in butter & olive oil. To get them nice & crispy, place a weight on top while frying. I use the bottom of another pan or pot – this also helps to prevent splatter from when the livers ‘pop’)

Perfect summer’s meal – refreshing, romantic and delicious! We enjoyed our dinner outside on the patio with a glass of crisp Pinot Grigio.

Enjoy! X

#dinner tonight: Zucchini Lasagna

September 25, 2013November 15, 20131 Comment

After having way too much {delicious, delicious, yet makes-you-feel-icky} bread yesterday {remember I don’t do much carbs these days and no bread really, so I’m not used to it anymore!}, I decided on a yummy zucchini lasagna bake.

Instead of using lasagna pasta, I used thinly sliced zucchini.

This is a classic dish,with 3 main components:

Bolognese mince sauce, bechamel or white sauce and lasagna (zucchini!)

For the bolognese sauce:

1/2 an onion

500g venison mince

peppadew spice

2 tsp tomato purée

1 can of Italian cherry tomatoes or chopped tomatoes

1 carrot, finely grated

1 clove of garlic, chopped

About half a cup of red wine (I used Porcupine Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon)

2 tbs brown sugar

salt

Sauté onions and garlic in olive oil until soft, then add mince and peppadew spice and cook through. Add tomato purée and carrot. Add can of tomatoes and sugar. Add wine and let it simmer and reduce slightly until all the flavours have mingled nicely. Season with salt.

For the bechamel sauce:

2 tbs butter

2 tbs plain flour

1 cup of warm milk

salt & white pepper

Heat butter in a saucepan and when it’s melted, whisk in the flour to form a paste. Slowly add warm milk in teensy bits and whisk furiously to ensure the paste stays smooth and silky while the milk is added. Once all the milk is added, you should have a thin-ish and smooth consistency. Continue to whisk over medium heat, allowing the sauce to thicken. Season with a pinch of salt & white pepper.

Layer in an oven dish: start with zucchini ribbons (I used about 5 that I sliced into 2mm strips), then a layer of bolognese, followed by white sauce. Sprinkle with grated cheddar cheese. Add another layer of zucchini and top with the rest of the mince. Sprinkle with more cheese.

Bake at 180C for 30 minutes.

Serve with mixed herb salad and avocado, a sprinkle of freshly ground salt and a drizzle of olive oil – enjoy! X

#BraaiDay – Roast Pork Neck with Apple & Sage stuffing

September 24, 2013November 15, 2013Leave a comment

Our Braai Day feast consisted of:

Corn bread & chicken liver paté for starters

Roast (and lightly smoked) pork neck stuffed with Apple & Sage

Roast beet & goats cheese salad

Buttery roasted sweet potato

Peach tart for dessert

Roast Pork:

2kg deboned pork neck

Woolworths BBQ rub (a brown sugar & coriander rub)

2 large granny smith apples, peeled, cored & cubed

butter

4 slices of thick white bread, crusts removed and cubed

8 fresh sage leaves

handful of dried apples

olive oil

brown sugar

1 onion, diced

1 egg, beaten

Slice pork neck open length-wise, but not all the way through – you should be able to fold open and have one large piece of pork.

Rub with olive oil and BBQ rub – I used about half a pot – inside and outside. Fold the pork neck closed, place in a casserole, clingwrap and refrigerate overnight.

In a skillet or casserole, sauté onions, apples & sage until soft. Remove from heat and add bread, salt & pepper, egg and half a cup of brown sugar. Let this mixture cool before stuffing the pork.

Remove pork from fridge a while before stuffing, allowing it to get to room temperature.

Fold open the pork and spread stuffing mixture over the entire piece of pork.

Roll up up gently, keeping all the stuffing inside. Fasten with string or secure with toothpicks.

Roast or smoke for 2 hours at 120C. (We smoked it low & slow, just to give it a hint of smokiness – but you can just roast it too.)

Roast beet & goats cheese salad:

Place beets into a casserole & rub with olive oil, balsamic & salt. Roast until tender (2hrs). Let them cool, peel and cut into quarters.

Toss cooled en roasted beets with mixed salad leaves, goats cheese chunks and ribboned cucumber. Sprinkle with chopped walnuts and serve with olive oil & balsamic vinegar.

Buttery sweet potatoes:

Cut sweet potatoes into quarters, place dollops of butter on top and inbetween, sprinkle with peppadew spice and roast for 2hrs with the pork (in a separate casserole).

Corn bread: (recipe from Sarie.com)

500g self-raising flour

3ml salt

50ml sugar

30ml sunflower oil

2 eggs – beaten

200ml evaporated milk

1 can of creamed corn

100g grated cheddar

1tbs chopped parsley

Mix flour, salt & sugar. Whisk together oil, eggs & milk and add to flour mixture. Add rest of ingredients and mix well.

Place in a greased black ‘braai’ pot and bake on the coals (also place hot coals on top of the lid) for an hour.

Chicken liver paté:

1kg chicken livers, cleaned

1 onion

1 cup of brandy

salt & pepper

1/2 cup of cream

bay leaves

butter

Soak chicken livers in brandy for an hour (do not discard liquid). Sauté onions in butter until soft. Remove livers from brandy. Add to onions and fry until cooked and no longer pink. Season with salt & pepper. Add cream. Transfer to blender and blend to a smooth consistency. Add the brandy that you soaked the livers in. Add half a cup of butter (soft) and blend until properly mixed.

Pour into desired dishes and top with melted butter and a bay leaf – refrigerate overnight.

Serve with corn bread.

Peach tart:

1 cup of sugar

1/4 cup of butter

1/4 cup of milk

1 cup of flour

1 tsp baking powder

2 eggs

3 dessert peaches

Cream together sugar & butter. Add milk And mix. Add eggs and mix again. Sift together flour, baking powder & salt and add to egg mixture. Place in greased tart dish, top with thinly sliced peaches and bake at 180C for 40 minutes until golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean.

Enjoy! X

Bobotie – Always a Favourite!

September 23, 2013November 15, 2013Leave a comment

After a nice weekend of relaxing and just taking it easy – visiting with some friends and drinking a bit too much wine – I decided on one of those good ol’ favourites: Bobotie.

I think this dish is perfect for a weekday dinner – you cook everything in one pot, add a bit of this and that – pop it in the oven and voila – dinner is done! You don’t even need to serve it with anything – just as is, is perfect. However, you can add a salad, or serve it with yellow rice (traditional way).

Tonight, we just had it as is, as I’ve had a lot to prepare for our #HeritageDay braai tomorrow. (You will have to wait for tomorrow’s post to see…)

Bobotie:

500g venison mince

1 onion, chopped

1 tsp turmeric

2ml ground cloves

10ml masala powder

10ml mild curry powder

salt

1 egg

2 slices of stale white bread, soaked in water

10ml lemon juice

100ml raisins (soaked in water to make them extra juicy)

3 tbs apricot jam

3 tbs oil

Sauté onion in the oil and add spices. Sauté until the onion is soft and spices cooked out. Add mince and cook for a few minutes until the mince is almost cooked. (If you overcook the mince, it tends to make the dish very dry.)

Add lemon juice, apricot jam and raisins – cook a little bit more and mix through. Remove from heat and add egg, as well as the bread, making sure you squeeze the excess water from the bread.

Mix through properly and scoop into a buttered oven dish.

Cover with savoury custard and place 4 bay leaves on top.

To make the savoury custard, beat 2 eggs together with half a cup of mil and a pinch of salt.

Bake at 160C for 45 minutes, until golden brown on top.

Enjoy! X

Our Veggie Garden!

September 20, 2013September 21, 20135 Comments

I’m so excited about our veggie garden! We’ve started to plant a few seeds – mielies (corn), carrots, beets and spinach, as well as some herbs – sage, coriander, basil, dill and watercress.

Our thieving chickens are pecking up all the seedlings – grrr – but some of them are still hanging in there. Hubby is fencing off our veggie patch tomorrow and hopefully the chickens will stay out!

Anyways, as this is our first attempt at becoming more self sustainable, we will see how it goes and then go from there. (I love plants and growing herbs, but to be honest, nothing survives for very long at my hands… {blush})

I found a really great blog about growing your own vegetables: www.its-our-life-for-six.blogspot.com

So inspiring – I hope our veggies will turn out as beautiful as theirs!

Here’s a peek into our garden (remember nothing has sprouted yet!):

The compost heap was made from old pallets (yes – another one for Pinterest!) and we filled them with horse manure, as well as all the fruit & veg off cuts from the kitchen. Holes were made into the heap by placing thick wooden poles down the middle and then removing them – for ventilation.

The veggie patch fencing is made from off cuts of wood we had lying around – well, it came from an old shed that was taken down. Hubby sawed all the pieces to size and then timbered them all together to form these fab picket fences. We saved about R5000 by making them ourselves – whoop whoop!

My wish for our little seedlings: grow baby grow!

Caveman Bake & Corn Salad

September 19, 2013November 15, 2013Leave a comment

So you might be wondering, ‘what the heck is a caveman bake?!’…

It’s my version of a bobotie-inspired, meaty type of tart slash bake – and here it is:

You will need:

500g venison mince (you can use beef too)

footlong piece of cabanossi

3 eggs

half a cup of milk

salt & pepper to taste

1 punnet of pattipans (cut into quarters)

6/7 mushrooms (cut into quarters)

6 cherry tomatoes or 2 whole regular tomatoes

peppadew spice

1/2 a tsp of cumin

1/2 a tsp of cayenne pepper

1/2 a tsp of paprika

Woolworths fried onion sprinkles

olive oil

Start by heating olive oil in a skillet and cooking the pattipans, sprinkle with peppadew spice. Cook until al dente, you don’t want soggy pattipans – so gross! Set cooked pattipans aside and use the same skillet to cook the mushrooms. Same story, sprinkle with peppadew spice and add tomatoes and another glug of olive oil. Set aside cooked mushrooms & tomatoes. In same skillet, cook the mince. Add peppadew spice, cumin, cayenne pepper, cabanossi and paprika. Cook the mince until just done, you don’t want dry mince! Next, layer all your ingredients in a baking dish: mince and cabanossi at the bottom, then sprinkle with the fried onion sprinkles, next layer is the mushrooms & tomatoes and finally the pattipans. Pour egg and milk mixture (season with salt) over entire dish and place 3 bay leaves on top. Bake at 180C for 30 minutes until set.

To make the corn salad, grill whole corn until cooked and golden. Cut corn off the cob and toss with cherry tomatoes, sweet basil and mixed salad leaves. Serve with olive oil and a splash of balsamic vinegar.

Oh yum – I LOVE eating! What would life be without food?! To finish off our delicious meal, we had some ‘homemade’ peanut butter ice cream. Now I say homemade, because, yes I made it at home, but not from scratch… {yes yes… I NEED an ice cream maker!}

Anyways, so I just mixed plain vanilla ice cream with smooth peanut butter and golden syrup. Yummy yum yum!

Watch this space – soon I will be dazzling with my own homemade (proper homemade!) ice creams..!

Enjoy! X

Paleo burgers & polenta chips

September 18, 2013November 15, 2013Leave a comment

I’m such a huge Masterchef fan and I saw a great idea from SA finalist, Leandri – polenta chips (aka fries).

So I decided to try it out. Tonight we had paleo burgers (no bun!) with these yummy fries:

grill patties (I used venison) and stack with cheese slices, tomato, lettuce and basil. I also used a bit of mayonnaise and whole grain mustard on the patty after grilling.

serve with polenta chips:

cook polenta and pour into a buttered dish to set. Once set, turn out from dish and cut into thick chips. Dust with raw polenta and deep fry in sunflower oil until golden & crisp. Serve with tobasco mayonnaise.

We had real 80’s style retro dessert tonight – I made lemon ‘snow’ puddings from the South African classic ‘Kook en Geniet’ cookbook.

1.5 tbs gelatine

1/4 cup cold water

1 cup boiling water

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup lemon juice and grated rind of half a lemon

2 egg whites

Pour gelatine powder into cold water and dissolve this in the hot water. Add sugar, lemon juice & rind. Let the sugar dissolve and pass through a sieve. Let mixture cool and start to set. Once it has started to get firm, whisk until it has a fluffy and frothy consistency. Whisk egg whites until stiff and fold into gelatine mixture. Place in a mold or glasses and set in fridge.

Enjoy! X

Confessions of a blogaholic

September 18, 2013September 18, 2013Leave a comment

{shopaholic / cookaholic / momaholic}

A lot of friends and blog followers have asked me recently where I find time to do all of this… I presume by ‘this’ they’re referring to my cooking & blogging?

So I’ve been giving it some thought and I realized – hey – this is my job! Ok, I didn’t just now realise, but still… Yes, this is my job – I’m a mom {here I can list a whole page of job descriptions} and I run our household {again – insert any number of tasks!}. I cook everyday – yes I do love cooking – and then I tell you guys about what I’ve made! So it’s really just the blogging bit that takes up more time, and quite frankly I’m really enjoying that too.

People often think that being a stay-at-home mom is so glamorous, that I sit around and paint my nails / catch up with the girls / do lunch /etc everyday… Well, I usually roll out of bed every morning just before my husband goes off to work (to earn us some bacon!) to get the kids sorted and pack him some lunch. Bless him, he makes me coffee in the mornings, although I suspect he’s only doing it so I will actually get up… Hmmm…

You see, I’m up quite a lot at night, with one breastfed baby and another toddler who gets night terrors from time to time… {I still love my job!}

Once I’m up and going, I stroll around in a pair of tatty cut-off shorts and an old manky t-shirt and flops: doing washing, tidying the house, soothing and feeding the baby, separating toddler and dog, etc! I only take a shower once the boys are both napping! I might then also get in a bit of me-time (no, no my friends, not to read a book or watch some TV – no, by me-time, I mean I get to dry my hair or paint my nails or plan dinner etc!) and enjoy some leftovers for lunch.

I can’t actually tell anyone exactly what it is I do all day, I just know that I am super busy with all the things that need to get done. I especially love it when my husband asks me what I plan to do today or what I have done today and my answer is something like ‘well I’m going grocery shopping’ or ‘I’m planning on washing the dog’, like that’s ALL I’m going to do / have done! Meanwhile, that’s over and above the daily stuff…

Anyways, this was by no means a moaning session, I just thought I’d put it out there. I know there must be millions of moms that know exactly what I mean and may even feel the same way. I am very grateful and privileged to be able to be at home with my boys! And to have the time to cook and experiment in the kitchen.

I always say that in my next life, I’d like to be a dad! Hahaha! {just kidding though}

Just saw this gem on Facebook – so appropriate!